a former bruin on
Bloomberg TV
Adam Johnson ’84 Wakes Up America’s Intelligentsia A hedge-fund trader turned television news anchor, Adam Johnson ’84 is so much more than just a money guy. by katherine ogden
It’s
4 a.m. on a Friday.
with the baker of an innovative
weekends delivering firewood out
investment giant ING, and later
Out of the pre-dawn
new confection — it’s all on the
of an old Suburban and later sold
saw him co-found a hedge fund,
emptiness inside a
docket as Johnson readies his mind
two-foot wheels of Brie on Maher
MLH Capital LLC.
New York City skyscraper emerges
for a show that starts in less than
Avenue.
a perfectly coiffed, fit, gracious,
two hours.
Brunswick alum. Humming with energy, Adam
“I can talk to you now,” he
“It was old-school,” he quips, “before hedge funds were invented.”
It was a trajectory to envy, but Johnson found that it tapped too few of his gifts. In a 2012 interview
says. “Downstairs, I’m going to be
Hedge funds, indeed.
with WAG Magazine, he described
Johnson ’84 effortlessly welcomes
jamming.”
Thirty years out of Brunswick,
what it was like to run a hedge fund:
two visitors into an early morning
Indeed.
Johnson can lay claim to an im-
routine that even a farmer might
Times of Brunswick had to get
pressive, 20-year career in finance
fun. But you can only do it for so
up extra early to catch up with this
that at midpoint saw him reap the
long. It’s boring to sit in a room
former Bruin, who once worked
benefits of a $600 million sale to
looking at screens and all you do is
find challenging. Promoted six weeks earlier to a coveted morning slot at Bloomberg
“Stressful, in a word. Lots of
buy and sell.”
LP, Johnson offers coffee (famous-
“I felt it was not using enough
ly free) and points to the kiosks
of me.”
of breakfast fare (also free) as he
A pivot to TV five years ago
breathlessly rattles off the news of
fixed that problem, and Johnson
the morning.
says it was his early days at
Crisis in Ukraine, a missing
Brunswick that prepared him
airplane, a conversation about wage growth with a world scholar from Columbia University, and, on the lighter side, a live interview
14
times of Brunswick • SPRING 2014
to make the change. Adam Johnson on air with his cohosts on Bloomberg Surveillance
It all started rather fortuitously, albeit with some prodding by the protagonist himself.